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Text your customers now through Google My Business

Google continues to add new features and offerings to the Google My Business listing. First, it was adding in "busy times" to the knowledge graph, then location attributes, and most recently, bringing back a way to share timely information with "Google Posts".

This week, Google announced they are rolling out the "chat with your customers" feature on Google My Business. Once activated, potential customers can message you right from the knowledge graph.

There is a one time set up for this process. Sign into your Google My Business account, and look for the chat section titled "Message with Customers". You'll be asked to verify the phone number you will be responding from. After that, you will want to set your "welcome message" or the response every customer will receive. That is the same dashboard you will use to change the phone number or turn the chat feature off if no one will be responding.

You've got to remember to be prompt in your responses. Nothing is worse than leaving a customer without the answer. As you respond back to more people, Google is keeping track of your average response time and will display that.

This Google My Business messaging addition is pretty cool...we've been testing it ourselves for months. Contact At Once! actually has a solution that integrates with Google's API to overcome the limitations with the bring-your-own-number approach. (For example, you can distribute those text conversations to your sales staff and/or your co-managed messaging team...all through the same Contact At Once! process you may already use for other chats/texts. Plus, you get extra insight into reporting & analytics.)

Be happy to help you get it activated or get you more details. Just message me separately.